Pubdate: Mon, 04 Jul 2016
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2016 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact: http://services.bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340
Website: http://bostonglobe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Paul D. Thacker
Note: Paul D. Thacker, a former investigator on the US Senate Finance 
Committee, is a writer living in Spain. This column originally 
appeared in STAT.

SENATE SHOULD RELEASE OPIOID REPORT

Like many Americans, I want to know how we got to the point that 
nearly 30,000 of our fellow countrymen and women died last year from 
overdosing on opioids. Many answers can be found in a report written 
by staff working in the US Senate. But the senators overseeing the 
report have failed to release it.

As a former investigator on the Senate Finance Committee, I have 
professional reasons for wanting to see the report made public. I 
also have personal reasons - I lost two cousins to opioids, and my 
father unwittingly became briefly addicted to fentanyl when he was 
prescribed the drug for back pain.

The committee's inquiry focused on the American Pain Foundation, the 
Center for Practical Bioethics, and five other organizations. It also 
targeted three leading opioid makers: Purdue Pharma (OxyContin), Endo 
Pharmaceuticals (Percocet), and Johnson & Johnson (Duragesic). The 
committee demanded to see documents and get answers to its questions.

The American Pain Foundation was a nonprofit that described itself as 
America's largest organization for pain patients. Yet much of its 
funding came from industry, and its guidance on opioids exaggerated 
their benefits while downplaying their risks. Days after the Senate 
investigation began, the foundation shut down "due to irreparable 
economic circumstances." Senate investigators later combed through a 
treasure trove of the foundation's documents, which helped explain 
how the foundation helped fuel prescriptions for opioids.

The Finance Committee also targeted the Center for Practical 
Bioethics, a nonprofit that bills itself as an independent national 
leader in helping policy makers and corporate leaders struggle with 
health care decisions. But Purdue Pharma has showered the center with 
funds, providing seed money to create the center's $1.5 million chair 
in pain management, held by Myra Christopher, one of the center's 
founders. The center also housed the American Journal of Bioethics, 
which published multiple articles promoting opioid use.

Over the course of many months, congressional investigators collected 
and analyzed a mountain of material. But these documents and a draft 
report remain sealed in the Senate Finance Committee's office.

The Committee launched the investigation in 2012, when Democratic 
Senator Max Baucus of Montana was chair and Republican Senator Chuck 
Grassley of Iowa was the ranking member. But Baucus resigned in 
January 2014 to become the US ambassador to China, and Grassley 
changed committee assignments. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah 
now chairs the Senate Finance Committee, and Senator Ron Wyden of 
Oregon is the ranking Democrat. These new leaders are likely to do 
little to release the opioid report.

When Hatch took over the committee, he promised to lead aggressive 
investigations. He has broken that promise. Hatch holds to an 
ideological conviction that government is bad and can be replaced by 
more efficient nonprofits. Releasing a report that hints at how 
corrupt some of these nonprofits can be would harm that ideology - 
even as it would help his home state. According to the Utah 
Department of Public Health, opioid poisoning is now one of the 
state's leading causes of death, killing 24 people each month, more 
than die from firearms, falls, or auto accidents.

Voters in Oregon, which has had the second highest rate of opioid 
abuse in the country, shouldn't expect much better from Wyden. Like 
many Democrats, Wyden has no love for corporate corruption, but this 
is balanced by an aversion to the pain and drudgery required for 
congressional investigations.

Last September, dozens of public health advocates pleaded with both 
senators to release the findings of the opioid prescribing report. 
They noted that many of the companies and groups targeted by the 
investigation "have continued to promote aggressive opioid use and 
continue to block federal and state interventions that could reduce 
overprescribing." In response, Hatch said he would bring up with 
other senators the possibility of releasing the report. That hasn't happened.

Every day, an estimated 78 Americans die from an opioid overdose and 
more than 1,000 are treated in emergency departments for misusing 
opioids. Medical evidence tells us that these overdoses are 
"accidents." A sense of justice tells us that they aren't. Instead, 
they are preventable incidents tied to corporate profit. Those at 
fault should be named and held accountable.

Release the report, senators. Americans deserve to know who created 
the national scourge of opioid addiction.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom